His master’s choiceAN enterprising journalist overheard the following conversation between two senior leaders at the Bharatiya Janata Party headquarters in Delhi on the theme of myth and reality: Myth — Bangaru Laxman; reality — Atal Behari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani.

West Bengal brewMUCH before anyone expected, West Bengal has become a crisis point involving the Centre, the ruling Left Front and even the Congress. The three are hunkering down for a possible showdown, with the Union Home Ministry making threatening noices, the state government daring it to impose President’s rule and the Congress jockeying for an ambivalent position.

Red star at US OpenAND they talk of glorious uncertainties of cricket! Is tennis any the less unpredictable? Who would have thought that a barely-out-of-teens Marat Safin who had seven first-round losses in his last nine tournaments would outplay the legendary Pete Sampras in the final of the $15-million US Open on Sunday to become the first Russian ever to claim the coveted title! But that is what happened on that topsy-turvy day in the Arthur Ashe Stadium when few of the bullets of Pistol Pete hit the bull’s eye.

BJP’s FUTURE PROGRAMMEThe importance of Muslim vote by A. N. Dar
IN his first policy address as the president of the BJP, Mr Bangaru Laxman, gave a new turn to the party’s future programme. He indicated two clear viewpoints — the desire to give his party a majority without having to comply with the tantrums it suffers from the many minuscule groups to whom Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee has to defer, and the recognition of the importance of the vocal Muslim minority to tilt the scales constituency after constituency.

New challenges before Plan panelby S. SethuramanPLANNING has not been an article of faith for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which leads the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition at the Centre. Its economic philosophy while in opposition had been rooted in mercantilism.

MIDDLE

The release ceremonyby Darshan Singh MainiTHE book-release ceremony has become such a common feature that few of us ever pause to have a closer look at it. The to-do, the jolly bustle and the air of festivity are usually so pleasing to the eye and the ear — and, of course, to the palate when the proceedings are capped with cookies and coffee and other delicacies — that it looks almost uncharitable to call its raison d’etre to question.

ANALYSIS

Preserving heritage in ‘time capsule’From Mamta Desai in Valsad (Gujarat)THE tiny village of Sanjan in south Gujarat, where the Parsis, or Zoroastrians, first landed on Indian soil after fleeing religious persecution in Iran about 1,000 years ago, will witness a rare event when a ‘time capsule’ on the cultural heritage of the community will be buried.

Hindus in Paris denied templeFrom Ranvir Nayar in ParisTHERE is growing resentment amongst Hindus in France about the continuous denial of basic religious freedom and the right to practice their religion according to their traditions.
Even though Paris is home to over 125,000 Hindus, most of them hailing from India and Sri Lanka, there is not a single Hindu temple anywhere in the city.

AN enterprising journalist overheard the following conversation between two senior leaders at the Bharatiya Janata Party headquarters in Delhi on the theme of myth and reality: Myth — Bangaru Laxman; reality — Atal Behari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani. Between these two abiding "realities", which unfortunately for the party represent the same side of the poles, the appointment of the office-bearers of the BJP leaves no scope for doubt that Mr Vajpayee continues to be the larger reality. Mr Advani's moment of political glory came with the rath yatra to Ayodhya and ended abruptly with the demolition of the Babri Masjid. The post-demolition political compulsions forced Mr Advani to retreat so that Mr Vajpayee, who was neither associated with the yatra nor the destruction of the Babri Masjid, could spread his moderate charm as part of the damage control exercise. In a manner of speaking, Mr Advani did all the hard work, but Mr Vajpayee continues to reap the reward. Political analysts were quick to point out that the new team of office-bearers has virtually been handpicked by the Prime Minister, and Mr Bangaru Laxman merely proved, by formally releasing the list, that he is to Mr Vajpayee what the real Laxman was to Lord Rama. Some of the appointments are both interesting and surprising. For instance, the accommodation of two former Delhi Chief Ministers, Mr Sahib Singh Verma and Mr Madan Lal Khurana, indicates the helplessness of the leadership in making the two veterans work in harmony for reviving the party in the national Capital. A former Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Mr Gopinath Munde, has been included in the Laxman sena with a definite political goal in mind. He is counted among the most vocal critics of Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray. By keeping him involved in the affairs of the party in Delhi the leadership hopes to revive the process of removing the misunderstandings between the BJP and the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra.

But the biggest surprise is the profusion of ex-Congressmen who have been given important party assignments by the new BJP President. Mr Sunil Shastri, Mr B.P. Maurya and Mr Sanjay Singh have been accommodated in the "pro-PM" team, evidently with an eye on the assembly elections in UP. Mr Sunil Shastri is a son of former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri who enjoys the trust of the people in the pocket in and around Allahabad. Sentimental voters may follow him to the election booth just because he has begun to look like his politically and socially respected father. Mr Maurya is, of course, the Dalit face of the BJP, who once won a Lok Sabha seat from Uttar Pradesh with a record margin. All he would be required to do is to introduce Mr Laxman to the Dalit electorate. Thereafter the BJP President should have no difficulty in establishing instant rapport with the electorate in UP because of his amazing command over spoken Hindi. Mr Sanjay Singh is a general purposes politician who is more comfortable handling the dirty tricks department of the party he decides to become a member. Since the entire team has been picked primarily with the UP assembly elections in mind, it is surprising that Mr Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi has not been promoted as a general secretary, particularly after Mr Laxman's inaugural "Muslims are the flesh of our flesh" address in Nagpur. The denial of a senior post to Mr Naqvi is too small a victory for the Advani camp to celebrate.

MUCH before anyone expected, West Bengal has become a crisis point involving the Centre, the ruling Left Front and even the Congress. The three are hunkering down for a possible showdown, with the Union Home Ministry making threatening noices, the state government daring it to impose President’s rule and the Congress jockeying for an ambivalent position. It is inevitable given the temper of the leading players. The prima donna, Ms Mamata Banerjee, is consumed by her passion to throw out the communists from power; she is enthusiastically aided and abetted by Mr George Fernandes, a one-time socialist who enjoys stirring things up. At the Centre is a leader, Home Minister Advani, who likes to jawbone his way to restoring law and order. The Congress is caught in the crossfire and is unpleasantly aware of its crucial role in the days and weeks to come. Quite a cast for turning violent incidents in the rural area into a sizzling melodrama. The CPM sees both a danger and an opportunity in its two-front battle with the Trinamool Congress at the state and the BJP-led alliance government at the Centre. It is sure that Article 356 and the state government’s dismissal are out of the question. Several NDA partners are committed opponents of this course and the BJP and the Samata will not needle them. Support from the Congress is essential to get the Rajya Sabha approval for President’s rule and its initial reaction has been hostile. But the Centre can still bombard the state government with “advisories” and instructions, demanding compliance and explanation. That way tension will remain red hot and there will emerge a clear polarisation of the people of the state on either side of the Left Front-Trinamool Congress divide. Traditionally, the Left Front has a support base of 40 per cent of the electorate and Ms Banerjee must be hoping that she can mobilise the rest and walk away with the next year’s assembly election. There is a problem here. If she fights the communists singlehandedly, she may increase her following; if she depends excessively on the Centre, her gain will be minimal since there is clear alienation of the people from New Delhi.

The CPM and its front partners pin their hopes on this fact. As a state on the periphery, West Bengal does not have a strong emotional bond with the Centre and the series of pinpricks it is planning may be counterproductive. This fear is reflected in the distancing of the Congress from invoking Article 356. Chief Minister Jyoti Basu too banks on this, as his challenge to the Centre shows. For starters, he has decided to withdraw his request for party permission to retire; instead he will continue to first lead the counterattack and later the Front in the election. A bitter stand-off may ensue if there is an attempt to either unilaterally declare some districts as disturbed area by amending the law through an ordinance or by resorting to the rarely used Clause 1 of Article 356 by taking over some functions of the state government. Both will look arbitrary and immoral. The second idea is that of Mr Siddhartha Shankar Ray, who sold the Emergency solution to Indira Gandhi in 1975. There is also a proposal canvassed by men like Mr Fernandes. He wants President’s rule well before the elections and by the time Parliament takes up its approval, the election will be over and hopefully a friendly government will be in place. It did not quite work out that way in Bihar but generated enough sympathy for Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav’s party, helping him form a government of sorts. But then if one spends five hours and hops in a helicopter to three villages and discovers a breakdown of democratic working, the election is bound to look as good as won.

AND they talk of glorious uncertainties of cricket! Is tennis any the less unpredictable? Who would have thought that a barely-out-of-teens Marat Safin who had seven first-round losses in his last nine tournaments would outplay the legendary Pete Sampras in the final of the $15-million US Open on Sunday to become the first Russian ever to claim the coveted title! But that is what happened on that topsy-turvy day in the Arthur Ashe Stadium when few of the bullets of Pistol Pete hit the bull’s eye. The winner of an amazing 13 Grand Slam titles had no hesitation in admitting that he was outplayed. He was generous in the praise of the 6-foot-4 Russian, saying that he was too good. There were many among the spectators who agreed. At 29, Sampras is almost a veteran but he is certainly not over the hill. The 14th Grand Slam crown may have proved elusive this time but the big American was not boasting when he said after the match that he had many years of competitive tennis left in him. He is bent on finishing at number one. But at the same time, it is going to be an increasingly difficult task for him to motivate him to extract the last ounce of energy from his battle-weary body against players 10 years younger, especially after the various injuries that he has suffered in his illustrious career. Whatever may be the form of Sampras in the days to come, Safin is the rising star on the horizon. The $800,000 victory that the powerful baseliner posted in straight sets was no fluke. He had also beaten Sampras in August in the quarterfinals of the tennis Masters series and was also a runner-up in Indianapolis. The way he tackled the almost invincible serves of Sampras was a treat to watch. Keen watchers of the game aver that he has the talent, physique and the killer instinct to dominate the game for many years to come. All that he has to display now is consistency. As he begins his climb towards the numero uno position, he has to step into the oversized shoes of Pete, whose records are going to be a huge challenge for all times to come.

As far as the women’s game is concerned, the Williams sisters are making it a family affair. After Vanessa, it is Venus who is making tremendous waves. At the US Open final, she staged a tremendous comeback to oust Lindsay Davenport 6-4, 7-5. This was her 26th match win in the past three months. Power play is not the high point of women’s tennis but the Williams sisters are changing all that. They pack quite a few punches and have been responsible for bridging the gap between the men’s game and women’s. The excitement that they generate on court is palpable and bodes well for the future of the game. One does get emotional about the losses that yesterday’s top seeds suffer at the hands of today’s brat pack but passing the baton gracefully to younger players is a never-ending
process. Tennis is indeed growing young what with two 20-year-olds walking away with the singles crown.

IN his first policy address as the president of the BJP, Mr Bangaru Laxman, gave a new turn to the party’s future programme. He indicated two clear viewpoints — the desire to give his party a majority without having to comply with the tantrums it suffers from the many minuscule groups to whom Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee has to defer, and the recognition of the importance of the vocal Muslim minority to tilt the scales constituency after constituency. If both indications are to be accepted, it showed the new BJP president as a strategist who wants to gain the upper hand in electoral battles and widen the scope of his party.

This could be in contrast to the strategy of Mr
L.K. Advani, who roused the Ayodhya fever to make the BJP a formidable Hindutva party that no one could later keep away from power. When the BJP achieved a formidable position but not enough to form the government on its own and had to go in for an unwieldy coalition, one should have seen the same Advani rushing the night after the election results from one television studio to another to explain why it was necessary to secure alliance and for the time being give up the demands on Article 370, Ayodhya and the common civil code, the heartbeats on which the hard-core BJP cadres had been brought up. He thereby showed great dexterity of approach. Now Mr Laxman has gone a step forward to tell his policy-making cadre in Nagpur why it must extend its embrace to Muslims as well.

As a slightly comic interlude, the BJP must gracefully retrace its jibes at the Congress which it had been criticising for decades, from Jawaharlal Nehru’s time itself, for trying to appease the Muslims to lure them as a vote bank. Its Congress critics could gleefully turn back and say that it was now the BJP which is stealing Muslim members from it and giving them plum assignments as it happened recently. If this is correct, the Congress president, Mrs Sonia Gandhi, who was thought to have made Mr Salman Khurshed the UPCC chief to gain Muslim votes, has now turned away A.B. Ghani Khan Chowdhury as the West Bengal PCC chief even though he had a strong hold on the Muslims in the state.

If Mr Laxman is able to carry out his programme, he will make the BJP a broadbased all-India party which has been the dream of Mr Vajpayee, a hope of which we saw in the anguish he expressed soon after the demolition of the Babri Masjid. In better times for the Congress this would have made the BJP the B team of the Congress, but now it is the present ruling party which wants to become the A team, putting the Congress behind it. “The party has not made sustained efforts to reach out to Indian Muslims in a bid to weaken the influence on their minds of the sustained negative propaganda of our adversaries,” he said. He was now speaking almost like a party electoral manager. “We have somehow taken it for granted that our party will not receive any significant support from them. This preconceived approach has not helped our party either. We cannot afford to allow this situation to continue. If we do so, we shall be hurting our own future prospects, and Muslims will continue to be used as vote banks by our adversaries.”

Already, Ms Mayawati has complained that in installing Mr Laxman as the BJP chief, the party is trying to gather the Dalit vote. Mr Laxman has now gone further and tried to take away Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party’s sizeable Muslim support. Even Mr Kalyan Singh seems distraught. The Congress leader, Mr Madhavrao Scindia, put it succinctly from his party’s point of view. “How can hawks become doves overnight?” May be, all feel threatened. Most Muslim opinion has not felt very enthusiastic. They will want to test the BJP but, following the deep suspicion of its ways, they do not at present know how to do it. The suspicion continues.

But how much is this fight worth? Clearly, it is the nearly 14 per cent Muslim voting strength that everyone is trying to woo. This is the kind of strength the Muslims are known to relish though they always try to paint themselves as underdogs. Mr Laxman is right that Muslims are suspicious of the
BJP. In their understanding the BJP, alongside the RSS and organisations like the Vishwa Hindu
Parishad, wants nothing but fostering of the Hindutva, whatever gloss they may put on it. The few Muslims it could get elected succeeded because the BJP made extra efforts to get them in as showpieces. That is why it had Mr Sikandar Bakht as a senior minister for a number of years. In the Laxman era, he would not have been put to pasture without a senior Muslim minister emerging from somewhere.

For the rest the Muslims, not as a party but as a vote bank, had come to a clear strategy. Wherever the Muslims alone could tilt the balance, they would elect a Muslim whichever party he belonged to, except the
BJP. If there were several Muslims, they would send the best of them who would, forget the larger policy, fight for them. If the Muslims could tilt the balance, they would vote for the one who would with their support defeat the
BJP, be it be a Congress or Samajwadi, BSP and RJD man or a leftist. The idea was to defeat the
BJP.

This is the picture Mr Laxman now wants to change. His eyes obviously are on the next election or the polls that are to come in many states in 2001. His strategy is also a warning not only to the opposition parties but also to the current allies of the BJP for if it gets a majority of its own their importance would go down and some of them could as well be dispensed with.

Alliances with the BJP worked well for them in the past. When Mr Chandrababu Naidu joined his forces with the BJP, many thought that he would lose Muslim support in Andhra Pradesh. He did not do badly. When Dr Farooq Abdullah did the same, many said he would lose his face with whatever support he has in the Kashmir valley. The strategist that he is, he sold the idea that he needed the Centre’s support to get funds for Kashmiris. So, he sailed triumphantly into the coalition, leaving poor Saifuddin Soz in the political dog-house. If the Muslim support is so important in the all-India context, I have often wondered why in a limited Kashmir valley context the Pandits could not play as decisive a role in any constituency there. Perhaps they are too dispersed or for centuries have carried on as wage-earners and never developed a political clout.

The effect of Mr Laxman’s call to his cadres and the indirect invitation to Muslims to rally round the saffron flag will not come out for quite some time. The Muslim vote — as well as of other minorities — is a prize which every party would like to grab. In the past Nehru was the all-important hope of the Muslims. So also was Indira Gandhi from whom they just could not be deflected. Rajiv Gandhi too gained from that legacy. Mrs Sonia Gandhi has not particularly tried to build for herself a special place among the Muslims. But they will rally round her wherever she can gain power and be in a position to help them. Without power they have little use for the Congress. The Congress, in choosing a leader who was born abroad and has made India her home, has made her a symbol of pluralism and secularism. But she has no special place among Muslims alone nor has the party been able to build a towering Muslim leader, someone like Maulana Azad or Rafi Ahmed Kidwai or Zakir Hussain or Sheikh Abdullah. The few Muslim leaders it has have been dwarfed by age and internal party intrigues.

All this should enable Mr Bangaru Laxman to try his best to make deep inroads into the important Muslim vote bank if his partymen, after years of early morning Hindutva shakhas, take to his advice.

PLANNING has not been an article of faith for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which leads the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition at the Centre. Its economic philosophy while in opposition had been rooted in mercantilism.

The NDA’s “Agenda for Governor” no doubt talks of a “hunger-free” India and raising of national savings to 30 per cent of the GDP (from 23 per cent) within five years! It has set a growth target of 7 to 8 per cent per annum and promised control of fiscal and revenue deficits.

At no time in its two-and-a-half-year hold on power at the Centre has the BJP leadership shown any great enthusiasm for planning as a basic pillar of India’s economic development though it has not jettisoned the Planning Commission. Indeed it found it useful to accommodate one of the politically distinctive persons to embrace the BJP at the head of the commission. All that Mr K.C. Pant could do in the extraordinary circumstances was to push through the draft of the Ninth Five Year Plan (1997-2002) drawn up by the previous government.

From time to time, the Vajpayee government has been making ad hoc policy pronouncements and taking steps which have no bearing on the Ninth Plan. What has been attempted in the last three budgets by Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha is to reel off some welfare schemes under new names and make incremental provisions under social overheads over the reduced expenditure in relation to the allocated amounts in the previous budget.

The Ninth Plan originally envisaged a GDP growth average of 7 per cent, subsequently scaled down to 6.5 per cent which itself seems unlikely, given the average of 6.1 per cent in the first four years, unless in the final year (2000-01) the government’s performance exceeds 8 per cent. What matters is not the Plan ending up with growth close to the target but how far it has succeeded in fulfilling the socio-economic objectives.

The commission has done a mid-term appraisal of the Ninth Plan but it has hardly seen the light of the day. Parliament did not discuss the Ninth Plan, which was approved by the National Development Council at the end of the second year and placed before the House in December, 1999. Shortfalls in achievements are widespread, more especially in the power and hydrocarbon sectors almost entirely controlled by government.

There has been no assessed impact of the plan expenditure in the first three years on employment or alleviation of poverty and the CSO’s latest survey on household consumption expenditure may be hopefully available only in 2001, the terminal year of the Plan.

Official data published already show a significant decline in the rate of domestic savings and investments, some deceleration in GDP growth, slowdown in industry and the worsening of the Centre’s fiscal deficit. The sharp increase in revenue and fiscal deficits of the states in the last two years have forced many states to divert Plan funds for consumption and maintenance expenditure, away from new projects and programmes.

Agriculture, still subject to vagaries of weather, had a mixed record in the first three years. Inflationary pressures had not abated in this period though the rise in the WPI on an average basis was low at 3.3 per cent in 1999-2000. Foreign investment flows — still too modest in comparison to China — NRI deposits and bonds and borrowings have helped to push the level of foreign exchange reserves by $ 10 billion in the first three years of the Plan period providing comfort to the balance of payments even if exports had remained stagnant for two years.

It is against this background that the Planning Commission has initiated exercises on the Tenth Five Year Plan (2002-07) as well as on “Vision 2020”. The question arises whether the Planning Commission can continue in its old grooves when, with an irresistible march of globalisation, the private sector has replaced the public sector as the engine of growth. Seventy per cent of investment comes from private sources and the state is simply unable to finance infrastructure and social development unless there is a dramatic turnaround in public finances, both at the Centre and in the states.

The limits of meeting consumption expenditure through debt and deficit have been nearly reached and the government debt-GDP ratio at 65 per cent is unsustainable. Fiscal stabilisation will inevitably be a long-drawn process, and in India’s political conditions it becomes more difficult with unstable coalition governments being unable to let economic rationale prevail over populism.

Economic and social goals have been enunciated in every Five Year Plan, but their realisation remains as distant as ever. The commission, though functioning within the limitations of an advisory body, no longer has the stature that it enjoyed in the earlier decades, and lately it has been functioning as an appendage of the political establishment. It has no track record of implementation of the Plan and evaluations at long intervals throw little light on the effectiveness of resource use and delivery of services. The challenges have now become greater with the widening of inter-state disparities in development.

The commission itself is reportedly engaged in re-assessing its role in the vastly changed domestic and global scenario. Apart from the sweeping liberalisation of the economy and its outward orientation, the severe resources limitations and policies and decisions taken at various levels of the government outside the Plan are making the tasks of the commission more difficult.

The credibility of the planning process has been undermined by the staggering dimensions of the gap between targets and performance over the years. The time is, therefore, ripe for a restructuring of the commission with a clearly defined set of functions so that it becomes more effective, both in the formulation of public investment plans and in monitoring implementation.

THE book-release ceremony has become such a common feature that few of us ever pause to have a closer look at it. The to-do, the jolly bustle and the air of festivity are usually so pleasing to the eye and the ear — and, of course, to the palate when the proceedings are capped with cookies and coffee and other delicacies — that it looks almost uncharitable to call its raison d’etre to question. In some cases, where the ceremony is meant to be fraternal fun rather than business, and where it’s more a meeting of minds than a carnival of conviviality and rhetoric, any unkind comment would naturally be considered an unthinkable lapse from manners, if not from grace. So in this little foray of the irreverent imagination, I have, as you can guess, a different kind of affair in mind.

But before I come to the format, design, rationale of such gatherings of the town elders and betters, of the assorted and assembled socialites, I think a word or two on the ceremonial aspects of life, and on the deeper, poetic urges that made ceremony and symbol so central in almost all cultures from the dawn of
civilisation, would be in order. For any kind of true satire is, at bottom, a wry acknowledgement of its reality and authenticity from which there has, sadly, been a grievous departure.

When you have an overaching view of the genesis of ceremonies that make up so much a part of our cherished and remembered life — births, baptisms, initiations, weddings, anniversaries, cultural or religious calendars and the utsavs associated with them, festivals of harvesting, rains, cycles of seasons, moments of history, not to forget the solemn, and serious events of cease, and death — we begin to realise the nature of their mystery and mystique.

However, there is also a strong tendency in man to turn truths to travesty, to reduce a rich, healthful symbol to commodity, and make it look tawdry in the process. And it’s only certain kinds of intellectual refinements that can prevent such a slide. But in a world where everything instant has become a culture of the mind, and where the long ordeal of labour, commitment and consummation a drag, a fading dream, a nuisance, in short, the desire to “cut corners”, to circumvent, to improvise, and thus to soften or ease one’s way to whatever one craves — money, fame, awards — leads the person in question to many a song and dance. And when you consider most of these book release ceremonies (to which, regretfully, writers in vernacular, or in regional languages are more prone in this country). You begin to see why and how good things of life lose their charm, their aroma and essence.

Personally, I’m amused more by the expression “book-release” than by the tinsel razzle-dazzle of things associated with such ceremonies. “Release from what”, one’s tempted to ask? Was it, the book, a captive, a prisoner, a hostage, an army recruit under press or duress, a thing pawned and retrieved? Though any ceremony which has a mixed motive would lose caste whatever name one may use — book “display”, “offering”, “airing”, “presentation” etc. — yet the very sound of the word “release” sets up a hum of images of entrapment, and confinement, and a good and proper occasion loses its solemnity.

But in one central sense, the concept of “release” is at the very heart of each creative work of art, whether it’s a painting or a volume of verse, a piece of music, a novel or some other form of fabulation. For any poem or story or sketch is nothing but a release of emotions, sounds, thoughts and images held captive in a heart or a head, and clamouring for a breakthrough, for their nirvana, so to speak. And when any such tide runs high, the song or the story would flow through the sluices of the imagination in a spontaneous yet controlled manner. That’s what in the Aristotelian idiom is called catharsis — a release and purgation of the emotions that have set up their own dance and buffoonery inside a roused sensibility.

THE tiny village of Sanjan in south Gujarat, where the Parsis, or Zoroastrians, first landed on Indian soil after fleeing religious persecution in Iran about 1,000 years ago, will witness a rare event when a ‘time capsule’ on the cultural heritage of the community will be buried.

The event is slated for ‘Sanjan Day,’ November 21. Several thousand Parsis from around the globe are likely to descend on the village to witness the ceremony, Rohinton Davierwala, President of the Sanjan Memorial Column Committee, said.

The stainless steel ‘time capsule’ will contain
artefacts and literature of the community, whose numbers are fast dwindling. The capsule will serve as a storehouse of Zoroastrian culture and heritage for posterity, Davierwala said.

The number of Parsis in India has been steadily declining. In 1881, their population was 85,397. It hit a high of 114,890 in 1941. The 1991 census put their population at 71,000, a decreased of 38 per cent in 50 years.

Parsiana, a Parsi magazine, reports the number of births and deaths in the Parsi community per month and per year. The figures speak for themselves. In 1996, 218 Parsis were born in Mumbai while 959 died. In 1993, 242 were born and 998 died. In January, 1997, alone 15 Parsis were born and 91 died.

The depleting population can be attributed to the low birth rate in the community. According to the Parsi Panchayat, the birth rate of the community is 1.35. Against this the national average laid down by the health ministry is 2.1, the number of children that all women in the reproductive age-group should have so that the population remains constant — the number of births matching the number of deaths.

Under the “Parsi Legacy Projects,” a similar capsule will be buried at Houston, in the USA, where the seventh World Zoroastrian Congress is scheduled from December 28 to January 1, 2001, Davierwala said.

The capsule, which is being fabricated by the noted industrial house of Godrej, will be ready by the end of the month. It will have airtight compartments to prevent the deterioration of its contents through oxidation, officials of the Mumbai-based Parsi Punchayat, which controls the affairs of the community, said.

Among the articles likely to be inserted in the capsule are the holy Khordesh Avesta (religious book) in Gujarati and English, the ‘kusti (holy thread worn around the waist)’, ‘sadra (vest), headgear and the items a priest uses during prayers.

Miniatures and replicas of Parsi household appliances, brocades, cassettes containing recordings of prayers, Shahname (religious texts) in Persian, English and Gujarati, historic coins, as also documents and photographs of Zoroastrian religious leaders will also be included in the capsule.

The capsule may be opened by the year 2200, the trustees of the Parsi Panchayat say.

While the Parsis are unique to India, where the largest numbers exist, pockets of Zoroastrians remain in Iran as well as in other parts of Asia, the USA and Canada.

THERE is growing resentment amongst Hindus in France about the continuous denial of basic religious freedom and the right to practice their religion according to their traditions.

Even though Paris is home to over 125,000 Hindus, most of them hailing from India and Sri Lanka, there is not a single Hindu temple anywhere in the city. And all the attempts by the Hindu community to build a temple have been persistently foiled by the French authorities.

“Hinduism is not even recognised as a religion by the French authorities. They only know Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Buddhism. Their laws don’t even mention Hinduism as a religion and we are identified as a collection of various sects. Sects in France have a very negative, hippy-like connotations,” an angry Madhusudan Sukhwal, a prominent member of the Hindu community in Paris, says.

Though Paris and its suburbs have two Hindu places of worship, they are informal and are housed in apartments and buildings on a temporary basis and have to keep moving almost every year. “We established our temple nearly 25 years ago. However, in this time, we have had to move at least 15 times. We are simply being chased from one locality to another. People don’t want to rent us the house when they hear that it is for a temple,” says Mukesh Chauhan, an International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) activist and a regular visitor to the makeshift Krishna temple in the suburbs of Paris.

Whenever ISKCON or other organisations have tried to buy land to set up a permanent and traditional temple, the local authorities have played the villain. Using a law that allows the state to intervene in any purchase agreement and buy the property at the declared price, the municipal authorities in Paris and in the suburbs have intervened in every single deal to purchase the property.

“Whenever they see the name of a Hindu trust, the authorities use the law and deny us the property. They make it clear that they don’t want to see other religions prosper in this country,” says Sukhwal, a nuclear engineer, who migrated to France over 30 years ago.

Sanderasekaram, a Tamil migrant from Sri Lanka, has a very similar experience to recount. He arrived in France in 1975 and on not finding any Hindu religious place in Paris he set up a Ganesh temple, Sri Manika Vinayagar Alayam, in 1985.

However, quite like ISKCON, Sanderasekaram also had huge problems with the local authorities and has had to move the temple from place to place over the past 15 years. He is also finding it increasingly difficult to organise the annual rath yatra to mark the festival of Ganesh Chaturthi.

“Often the police does not want to help us in organising the yatra (procession) or they ask us to meet some stringent conditions. We are made to feel like the French authorities clearly don’t want any other religion to prosper in this country,” an angry Sanderasekaram said. Hindu leaders also accept the limitations of their own community, which has contributed to the lack of religious freedom.

“Most of the Hindus here are rather recent migrants, unlike those in the USA or in Britain. They are still trying to settle down and have a steady income and make their lives. Hence they have little time for the community. Moreover, due to the lack of wealth generally, the political clout of our religion here is also limited,” says Sukhwal.

Truth is one; only It is called by different names. All people are seeking the same Truth; the variance is due to climate, temperament, and name. A lake has many ghats. From one ghat the Hindu takes water in jars and calls it jal. From another ghat the Mussalmans take water in leather bags and call it pani. From a third the Christian take the same thing and call it water. Suppose someone says that the thing is not jal but pani, or that it is not pani but water, or that it is not water but 'jal' it would indeed be ridiculous. But this very thing is at the root of the friction among sects, their misunderstandings and quarrels. This is why people injure and kill one another, and shed blood in the name of religion. But this is not good. Everything is going toward God. They will all realise Him if they have sincerity and longing of the heart.

— The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, Chapter 21

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As different streams having their sources in different places, all mingle their water in the sea, Oh Lord, so the different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee.